


Five Thousand Miles

by Thrandunt (orphan_account)



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 07:05:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7674826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Thrandunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a person reaches emotional maturity a tattoo appears on their wrist, informing them of the exact date they will meet their soulmate. As her date creeps closer and closer, Waverly can't help but dread it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I usually don't start new fics when I haven't finished another, but I just couldn't get this idea out of my head. Enjoy!

Though she's knows the lecture by heart, Waverly can't help the little leap of excitement that rushes into her stomach when her teacher announces they will be discussing the tattoos. She quickly abandons the coloring book she was using and directs her attention at the front of the room.

The class shift their desks into a lopsided circle, unusually attentive as their teacher smiles and pulls up a slideshow on the projector screen.

"As a few of you may know, today we will be learning about time markers-"  
  
"Ms. Smith, what's a time marker?" A loud boy rudely calls out. Waverly resists the urge to shush a him, rolling her eyes. 

"Well, Champ, I was just about to explain," the teacher patiently explains. She turns back to her computer, proceeding to the next slide. 

"A time marker is a small tattoo that appears on your wrist, usually displaying an exact date of time that you will meet your soulmate."

She is met with a few gasps of interest, and more than a couple of nose scrunches and fake gags. 

"Now, now, it's nothing any of you need to worry about right now," Ms. Smith chuckles. "They usually appear between the age of sixteen to twenty three, but there have been a few uncommon cases of them appearing earlier or later." 

Waverly raises her hand, and smiles brightly when Ms. Smith calls on her. "What happens when you meet your soulmate? How will you know?"

"Very good question, Waverly! Normally, in the week leading up to the date, your tattoo will become itchy, almost as if you have a mosquito bite," she replies. "But as for the actual encounter, you'll feel a rush of different emotions. Reassurance, contentment, joy, and basically a mix of every good emotion."

Waverly frowns. "But isn't there something more? Just a bunch of feelings can't always mean that you've found your soulmate, right?"

"You're right. Your marker will change from being completely black to an intense, bright white, and then gradually fade as your life goes on." 

Waverly nods, satisfied, and swings her legs beneath her chair, her feet not quite reaching the floor. 

When Gus picks her up from school, she chatters on and on, relaying everything she's learned about the mysterious timers. Her aunt looks at her through the rear view mirror, and smiles softly. 

* * *

 

She gets her mark the day after her nineteenth birthday.

Waverly wakes suddenly at 4:15 a.m, feeling almost as if something is off. She sits up and stumbles out of bed, turning on a lamp. Blinking, she squints around her room, trying to identify if an external force was the source of her hunch.

Out of habit, she glances down at her right hand, and nearly jumps out of her skin. 

She sprints across the hall, barging into her sister's room and shaking her roughly.

"Dude, whathfuck," Wynonna groans, trying to bury herself back under her nest of blankets.

"Wynonna, I got it."

"Got what?"

"My mark."

Wynonna rolls back over, her attention captured, and grabs Waverly's wrist. She gazes at the five digit date scrawled at the base of her thumb with an unreadable expression. 

"4/15/16. Fourteen days after I meet mine. Congratulations." 

Waverly feels her heart sink.

"You're not excited for me?" 

"Why should I be excited that the universe thinks it can dictate our lives? If you want to wait five years to fuck and marry a stranger, be my guest. All I know is that I'm not letting anything or anyone decide who I pursue. Daddy believed the same."

"Yeah, and look where that got him. Into an unhappy marriage and the burden of three kids," Waverly snaps, jerking her hand out of Wynonna's grasp. "I'm sorry that you're too insecure to think that anyone could love the town crazy!" She storms back to bed, pushing the guilt gnawing at her conscious away.

Wynonna leaves town a week later.

* * *

 

Four years later, Waverly learns to settle. 

Finally finishing online college, she takes up a job at Shorty's, making an agreeable wage bartending and waitressing. She manages to rebuild her reputation, becoming the town darling, and helps to dim the citizens's memory of her wild sister. She even gets a boyfriend. 

Champ is okay. Loud, possessive, and smug. But okay.

For once in her life, Waverly feels _good_. 

Maybe Wynonna was right. This is fine. She has a steady job, a handsome boyfriend, and a degree to do whatever she wishes with. And yet...

When the itching starts, everything she's worked so hard to build seems to come crumbling down. 

She catches Champ and Wynnona in her own bed. Though both still clothed, the wound it leaves in her still stings. 

Waverly leaves him on the spot, the tingling of her wrist growing stronger. 

* * *

 

And after years of no contact, her sister is back. Though anger and sadness hit her first, the joy of having Wynonna back outweighs the bad. 

Her tattoo has turned white, to Waverly's shock and realization. Wynonna begrudgingly admits that she knew immediately when it happened, and that he was none other than her new boss. 

Xavier Dolls is a nice man, in a rigid kind of way. He and Wynonna insist that their relationship remain professional, and that if they wish to pursue other partners, they are free to do so, much to Wynonna's relief.

"He sounds like he's a bore. For you, anyways," Waverly comments, rubbing idly at her own tattoo.

Wynonna grins. "He's actually all right." She nudges her sister with her elbow. "What about you? You're time is comin' up."

Waverly shrugs, looking down at her lap. "I thought you didn't believe in that stuff."

"My prior beliefs may have been a little...skewed," Wynonna says,  her voice more serious. "It was wrong of me to try to shove it into your face at such a young age."

Waverly gives her a small smile, accepting her sister's apology. "Well, in that case, yeah, I have thirteen days."


	2. Chapter 2

When the day finally comes, Waverly is ninety percent sure she wants nothing more than to lock herself in her room and try to give the universe the slip. But, just as her luck would have it, she has a shift today, and avoiding her soulmate is nigh impossible if she wants to keep her job.   
  
As she starts the ignition to her car, she can almost picture the smug bastard's face. There isn't a single person she hasn't met in this town, so he'll obviously be a newcomer.   
Maybe a journalist, finding the smallest town in the United States to get the biggest scoop of the century, and he'll return to whichever big city he came from with a brand new trophy wife.   
  
Waverly reverses the car a little too forcefully at the thought  
  
Or, the most likely of the two, he's a relative of someone already living in town, a smirking, swaggering cousin coming to visit his aunt and uncle. The jock type, fresh out of a fraternity with a degree in sports marketing.  
  
She slams her car door, exiting with an unspoken ferocity,  and unlocks the front doors to Shorty's.

She gets to work immediately, channeling her nervousness and anger into cleaning the counters.

'There's no way in hell that I'm going to let some stupid man-child ruin my mood and productivity,' Waverly thinks, scrubbing at a particularly stubborn smudge on the wooden bar.  

She smiles in triumph as the spot finally dissipates, and returns to the sink. She drops the rag in the hot, soapy water before wringing it out and getting to work on the taps. The plastic handles are shiny and glossy enough, but one can never be too careful about germs.

Waverly is carefully running the damp cloth around a fine vat of Kölsch when an jolt of intense heat pulses from her wrist, causing her to gasp in surprise. Her hand slips, and the tap bursts open, spraying her head to toe. The otherwise distinct clunk of the front door opening sounds somewhere in the background, drowned out by the loud spurting of the tap.

"Jesus!" she sputters, spitting beer out of her mouth. "Godammit!" She yanks the handle back, stopping the waterfall of ale.

A soft tinkle of laughter greets her ears. 

"I didn't know Shorty's had wet t-shirt competitions!"

Waverly's heart jumps into her throat. She turns around to be greeted with the sight of a beautiful, redheaded woman she's never seen before.

"I..." the words die in her throat.

Her heart suddenly calms, and the tension she's been holding in her body for who knows how long releases. A wave of serenity flooding over her, accompanied by a rush of endorphines

The shock must show on her face, because the redhead steps towards her, flirtatious stance gone.

"Are you okay?" she asks, concern washing over her features. She reaches across the counter and gently covers Waverly's hand with her own. "I was only joking, I didn't mean to upset you-"

They simultaneously gasp as a resonance echoes through either of their fingertips. 

Waverly's eyes leave the deputy's gaze and travel downwards to their joined hands. 

She catches the final remains of darkness fading from her own mark, only to be replaced by a brilliant, nearly illuminating, white ink. She doesn't have to draw her gaze any further to see the ignited, matching mark throbbing on the officer's wrist.

Their eyes meet again, slowly. The corners of the stranger's mouth quirk upwards, her eyes warm. 

"Hi."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boom. Out. 
> 
> Just kidding ;) A couple more chapters to go.


	3. Chapter 3

"I. . ." the words die in her throat. Waverly lets out a small laugh, shaking her head in ridiculous giddiness. She can feel her throat closing up, and she internally scolds herself, blinking away the small pools of moisture gathering at the corners of her eyes.

_A cop. A very smooth, very female cop._

"Yeah, no you're, uh, you're fine! Just a bit jumpy. Had a crazy couple of days."

The woman slowly bites her lip, her brilliantly white teeth dragging across the soft skin. She nods, a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth.

"Well, anyways. My name is Nicole. Nicole Haught," she taps her thumb lightly on the side of Waverly's hand, sending yet another thrilling bolt up her wrist.

"Waverly Earp," the brunette replies, her head spinning.

_Waverly_. The name feels as natural as breathing. Nicole slowly glances down to their hands and back up again, grinning. "Well, Ms. Earp, could I get a cappuccino?" 

"Oh, we're actually not open yet!" Waverly blinks, her head still spinning. She attempts to draw her hand away and in doing so remembers her sopping wet shirt.

"Oh, god, I'm soaking wet."

She pulls away, complaining about the damn taps, and tugs the now see-through shirt up and over her head. Nicole, like a true gentlewoman, smiles, and respectfully ducks her head. 

The dripping fabric sticks to her arms and oh god oh god oh god-

"Ah, officer," she can feel the heat flooding into her cheeks. "I think I'm stuck."

"Oh! Here, lemme help," Nicole's voice is warm, and she steps so close that Waverly can feel the heat radiating out of her uniform. The redhead gently lifts her arms free, and hands her damp shirt back to her.

Waverly finds herself grinning despite the embarrassment of the situation, and clutches the garment against her chest. Nicole holds her gaze, never once letting it stray, and matches the Earp's amused smile.

"Good thing you're not some guy, or this would be really, really awkward," Waverly lamely breaks the silence, hyper aware of the throbbing, aching glow of her wrist. She nervously tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, unintentionally displaying the burning tattoo.

"Mm, I've gotta say, Waverly Earp, that is a most peculiar response for someone who clearly has no _man_ waiting in line," Nicole's eyes follow Waverly's hand, and she silently prays she hasn't overstepped an unspoken boundary. She swallows self-consciously, stretching her fingers on which her own digits have ignited. 

A small giggle escapes Waverly, her chest rising and falling with each laugh. "You're smooth, I'll give you that."

Nicole's stomach leaps in joy, and she chuckles in response. 

"Well, I'll tell you what," she reaches into the breast-pocket of her uniform and pulls out a card and ballpoint pen. She neatly and swiftly scrawls something down onto it, and hands it over to Waverly. "Here's my personal. Give me a call after your shift is over?" 

She winks, lifting her Stetson back onto her head, and begins to step past her. 

"Wait-" In a brash, fleeting rush of adrenaline, Waverly grabs Nicole by the hand, gently pulling her back. The officer turns and looks back at her, silently pleased.

Waverly gulps, fearing she's coming off too clingy.

"Look, I-I don't want you to go yet. 

Nicole's eyes soften, and she smiles warmly. "Then I won't." She holds up a finger, indicating that she'll only be a moment, and switches her radio on. She quietly speaks into it for a few moments before receiving an almost immediate response. 

"And why would I give you the rest of the day off?" Waverly recognizes the gruff voice to be that of Sheriff Nedley's.

"Personal matters, sir. I'll work overtime for the rest of the week if it can compensate for this.""

"Must be somethin' serious."

"Yes, sir. I found her."

There's a slightly uncomfortable silence as Nicole waits for a response, and Waverly shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

"Understood."

Nicole shoots her a small grin and flicks the radio off again. 

Waverly blushes, a slight smile tugging at her lips, and glances up at the clock hanging above the door.

"You know, if you're still up for it, I could buy you that cappuccino.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the shortness of this chapter. I promise, I've got something a little more exciting in store for the next update ;)

**Author's Note:**

> More to come soon..?


End file.
